This year at our church to celebrate Christmas, instead of doing fancy decorations and traditional garland we have been planning for quite a while now to do a “food drop” for the Auburn area. So if you were to walk around the church right now you will see boxes everywhere. A Christmas tree made out of boxes, presents made out of gigantic boxes, and the filled and returned boxes we started to give out this past Sunday. The way we have tried to communicate this on our own website is that we are never more like Jesus then when we serve others. And throughout the month of December, Cornerstone members and attenders (or anyone who wants to be a part giving back to our community) will be given the opportunity to serve others using a simple box. We are asking everyone to:
- Pick up a box and packing list from the Cornerstone lobby.
- Pack the box full of food for families in Lee County.
- Return the filled box to the church by January 1, 2012.
- Saturday, January 7, gather at Cornerstone and pack the SUV’s, minivans and pickup trucks with these boxes and head out to specific communities to pass out these boxes to families in our area. (We will work with the Food Bank of East Alabama to target the communities in the greatest need.)
This is an opportunity to make a tangible difference in someone’s life by offering basic necessities that many of us take for granted. We can make the New Year great for our community with our simple gift of a box of food, and we are trying to have over 1,000 boxes filled by January 1st. For more information you can also visit the Cornerstone Food Drop 2012 info page, or visit Lee’s blog post as well.
If you are reading this and saying to yourself, I don’t go to Cornerstone so that’s nice and all but who cares… well, you don’t have to, but you can still participate. If you are in the Auburn-Opelika area, just come by the church lobby and pick up a packing list and a box and return it before January 1st.
Either way, whether you participate or not, I hope you can make it a priority this Christmas to go beyond the normal gift giving and remember others who are not as fortunate. I love that about Cornerstone, and I love seeing the church be the church. We need to think, learn, study, and understand God’s word, but we also need to go… and do. How can we say we believe what the scriptures say unless we actually do what it says. I hate the commercialization that always goes along with this time of year, but I love this. Hope you will help make it a success as well.
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I love being part of a local church body that takes the GO in God’s word literally, and seriously. Last week I spent as much time as I could studying about mission theology and how it relates to the nature of God for an international missions paper. Even though my study was under the context of international mission, much of the study of mission theology relates to the mission that is being lived out through our local congregation here in Auburn, and local churches all across the country.
Sunday was our very first meeting and worship service for the new multisite location, and it was amazing to see about 150 people there to kick off the new site. With 150 people or more who have committed to making this new site a success it is already bigger than about 80% of the churches in the country. But more importantly, the people here have a huge heart committed to serving people in our area who have never walked into a church before, and that is exactly what scripture talks about through mission theology.
Throughout the Old and New Testament scriptures, God’s mission is deeply related to His own nature. In fact, the two terms are so deeply related to each other that mission can be defined as being part of the “nature of God.” The Latin term missio Dei is often translated as the “sending of God” or the “mission of God” and is derived from the very nature of God himself, “encompassing everything God does in relation to the kingdom and everything the church is sent to do on earth.”[1] When we examine scripture in context we see that “God is the initiator of His mission” sent to redeem his people through Christ, and then through the Church.[2]
While mission is not the only “nature of God”, the nature of God can’t be separated from mission. It is in God’s very nature, and is played out from the calling of Abraham, to the exile and exodus of the Israelites, to the coming the Son of God the Messiah. It can be seen in the setup of the New Testament Church in the book of Acts, and on into our modern day evangelical churches like my own where our leadership long ago decided that this church would not sit idle while “someone else” did the work of mission.
The very mission of God, which is to receive the praise and worship of all nations, is so closely woven together that neither could exist without the other. In modern day cultural terms, mission is not often thought of as a theology, and is rarely related to other aspects of theology. But, when scripture is closely examined, we see God indeed calls all nations to worship him, which then makes it “natural to build a theology of mission at the core of all theological studies.”[3][4]
All that to say, this is an exciting time here at Cornerstone as we move ahead with being one church in multiple locations. We are one of very few multisite churches in our area, or even the state, who are moving through a plan to reach people in our area through more than one location, and doing so with missio Dei as the focus.
[1] McIntosh, John A. 2000. Evangelical Dictionary of World Missions, ed. A Scott Moreau, s.v. “Missio Dei.” Grand Rapids: Baker.
[2] Sanders, Van. “The Mission of God and the Local Church,” in Pursuing the Mission of God in Church Planting, ed. John M. Bailey, Alpharetta: North American Mission Board, 2006, 24.
[3] Moreau, A. S., Corwin, G. R., & McGee, G. B. (2004). Introduction to World Missions: A Biblical, Historical, and Practical Survey (1st Edition ed.). Grand Rapids, MI, USA: Baker Academic, 75.
[4] Bosch, David J. 1980. Witness to the World: The Christian Mission in Theological Perspective. Atlanta: John Knox.
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This is the last trip post before we get on the plane in a few hours. I will continue to post some photos from the trip over the next several weeks and months as I go through the thousands of images I’ve taken over this trip. I can’t reflect over this trip any more, especially since we really have no distance in time for all our experiences over the last 7-10 days. For now I will leave everyone with the photo above that sums up our awesome driver, who took care of us the entire time. Everyone who has been over knows what this photo means. We love Eddy.
In this post are some shots of us in the crazy fast Eddy van along with one of Olive we all just loved. She was a super nice lady who went with us just about everywhere. It’s hard to sum up this trip. I think I probably will find it hard to sum up the trip for months to come, but overall it was a learning experience, a humbling experience, and hopefully one where we lived out the love of Jesus.
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Today was our last full day in Uganda. Tomorrow we will head over to a local market and have lunch before we head for the airport and a long long ride home. Today we went across Lake Victoria to the Bethany Village Orphanage in the morning, and back to Buloba to visit some sponsor children, put up some rain catches, and the woman were able to speak with a group of local woman. It was a very refreshing and uplifting day.
Tonight we had a wonderful last dinner at the guest house with our friends from 60 Feet. It was so great to have the two K’s over for dinner (their first names are Kelsey and Kirby), and I think we all enjoyed some casual discussions, along with African Renewal Ministries who came over as well. There were so many things we experienced on this trip that need to be followed up on, things that God pulled together for our team that became a great start. We understand as a team we probably can’t change the world, but we can continue to take some small steps forward that will collectively make a difference.
Tomorrow we head to the airport for our 11pm flight. Our flight leaves about 2pm Central Time on Thursday, and if our flights are on time, we should be back in Auburn late Friday afternoon. This trip has been incredible to say the least, and God put together a team that had so many different individual gifts and talents that only God could have brought us all together like this. As we head home we have so much to reflect upon, so much to process, but we trust in God to take care of the details and to use this trip to fulfill a purpose that will glorify God.
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We have just about two full days left before we head back home. Today, at least I was thinking, was supposed to be a little easier than yesterday, but as when you try to plan for God, he often has different plans. This was by far the hardest day we have had, and as we met tonight we struggled with what we saw, and ultimately had to give it up to God and go to bed. There were 7 of us (out of the 9, the other two went to the University today) that went to the 2nd and 3rd children’s facilities today and when we got back to the guest house I think we all felt beat up and worn down. It was such a night and day difference between yesterday and today. We have compared and contrasted with each other for hours, struggling with what we can do, what we can’t do, and what we have to just give up to God and be ok with.
The photos in this post were only taken at the 1st place we went to today. The second place we went to we were told the government would not allow any photos within the facility, and for the first time, in perhaps years, I really had no desire what-so-ever to take a single image away from that experience. It will be forever burned into my mind as God showing me what His heart breaks for in this world today. With my camera stuffed in my backpack I was immediately taken out of my own comfort zone, behind the camera, and shown the realities and challenges our world can deliver. I’m grateful for that opportunity and I think I will learn from it for a long time to come. There were several team members who suggested that I write a short post and not put up any photos at all to correlate to the experience we had with the second children’s facility, but that was really only half of the day today. So, the other half of our day is shown in the photos in this post, there were none from the second half of the day. I love the shot of Amy Frye at the top. I think that pretty much sums up the day, but we are thankful for God’s love and that he is in charge.
The other two members of the team, Probakar and Emile, went to the University today and had an incredibly positive experience. Probakar was able to give a guest lecture to about 100 students and Emile explained her process of making clean water from sale and light. They brought back many new connections for future work that can be done and had a very positive and uplifting day.
We took away several positive individual stories from both places, and we have planted many seeds for our local partner church in Buloba or Gaba to pick up the work where we just barely got started. The team is really looking forward to tomorrow where we will go across Lake Victoria to Bethany Village Orphanage and then on to Buloba in the afternoon where the ladies will share with some of the woman from Buloba Church and the men, plus Amy Frye, will install some rain catches.
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Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand. For I, the Lord your God, hold your right hand; it is I who say to you, “Fear not, I am the one who helps you.”
This is how our team started the day today.
This verse from Isaiah was on all our hearts as we headed two and half hours out of our comfort zone, into the Ugandan landscape, to visit some children that we have been praying for and about, for months now. Words just can’t describe the day we had today. How do you explain the heart of God in the midst of nine people who only want to follow a call that none of us seemed to understand, and in many ways, still don’t? I know there are just some days when you can feel God’s presence moving and working more than others. I think we all go through days like that when we feel farther away from God’s presence, and then there are days, like today, where God’s presence is so tangible that you wonder how you can keep time from moving forward.
Today we visited the first of two very special children’s facilities in Uganda, escorted alongside a ministry group that has been working very hard over here to be the salt and light to these very special children. We spent the day interacting with these kids, and we worshiped with these kids in a way I don’t think any of us expected. There wasn’t a praise and worship chorus sung, there weren’t any lights or electricity, it was just a few African drums and the voices of about 100 people, mostly kids, singing in a way only the Joy of the Spirit can provide.
The photos here (and this text) represent our day at this facility today in a way that is meant to show part of what we experienced throughout the day. These weren’t the photos I liked necessarily, they were the photos that the entire team picked out to include. As if the day wasn’t incredible enough, all nine of us waded through about 1,500 images and narrowed them down to these 16. Some images weren’t included here and were as powerful as any image I have taken in my 20 years as a photographer, but all of this was done with purpose and conviction with these kids in mind.
Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.
This is how the day ended.
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Today was an unbelievable day. I hate to keep repeating that over and over again each day, but I don’t really know how else to describe it in actual words. I have broken sentences, incomplete thoughts, and it’s 1:30am right now and I have to get up in about 4 hours for probably the most emotional day of the trip, so I know below isn’t going to be perfect, but you get the idea.
Today we started off with worship at Gaba Community Church. Church started at 8am (not sure when it ended) with their intro praise and worship. We stayed for an hour before we had to leave for Buloba Community Church and worship with our friends in Buloba. Church in Buloba went from about 9:30 until about 1pm. It was great to have the privilege of being able to worship with these two churches today. The worship experience between the two churches is actually pretty different. Gaba is a westernized worship (at least the one we go to is) and is very similar to our own church. With the concrete walls and ceilings and all open windows though the praise and worship sounds like it should be heard for miles, and probably is. After Gaba we were hurled down to Buloba by our famous NASCAR-ish driver, Fast Eddy, and arrived for bible study around 9:30am, with church until 1pm.
After lunch the team traveled around the area to visit several different homes that have sponsor children. This was a very humbling experience and extremely difficult to explain. This was the first time I was able to go into the homes of specific families and there really aren’t adequate words to describe the feeling you get from walking into someone’s home like this. The families are so excited to see us and spend some time with us, and that just amazes me. The three homes we visited were very emotional and one that just stands out (photo below) is when Bart got to visit the home of his sponsor child and pray for and with his boy’s mother. It’s the photo below of most of us packed into a space of about 4 feet wide by 6 feet long. I was using an 8mm fisheye lens so the photo in this case doesn’t do the situation justice, but it was as good as I could do in this situation. The photo above was probably my favorite photo of the day and that photo was taken with April’s sponsor family home. I love that shot because of the expression on April’s face but we had a little more space to shoot so I was able to capture a more natural light image.
After the home visits we were scheduled to go speak with the high school students at St Francis (a school we played a ton of soccer at on the last trip). We were going to speak to the students in this job fair type lecture but instead of being there for a 30-60 minute stay we ended up there for several hours. The last shot below of Prabhakar shows the very last speaker of the day and it made the day. He had these students in stitches but gave them some incredible advice in only the way a university professor could do. He was definitely the ringer of the whole day for these kids.
Tomorrow is going to be one of the most difficult days of the entire trip and we will all appreciate your prayers as we head over to work with 60 Feet ministries in a children’s prison in Kampala. I’ll explain it more later but the is the culmination of a long process that has been prayed over for months. We all prayed together tonight for tomorrow, for the strength to go through this and still be light and salt to everyone we meet. For now, I hope you enjoy some of the photos of the day. The images here represent a snapshot of the day and pretty much the entire team individually picked out these 14 images. I know there’s a bunch here but it’s hard to narrow down 2,000 images into 14 and have it truly represent the day. Thanks for your continued prayers for all of the team, I do miss seeing my family, as we all do, but everyone is doing well. Deborah, there is one photo below (not of me) I included just for you, can’t you guess which one? Love you!
The plan is for us to do a post tomorrow with images from the children’s prison, but right now I just don’t know what that looks like at all.
